What are Universal Colours?

I’m often asked if there is such a thing as Universal Colours – the colours that suit everyone. People ask me if black is one – sadly it is not as it’s colour properties are – cool, deep and bright – so if you are warm, light or muted in your colouring, black is really unflattering.

I'm not sure if it's for you but how would you feel if you learned all about the colours and styles of clothing that suit your individual personality, shape and style? Just imagine what it would be like when you can open your wardrobe and pull together fabulous outfits that make you look and feel amazing every day? If you'd like to stop wasting money on the wrong clothes and accessories plus join an amazing bunch of very special women also on their style journey - then my 7 Steps to Style program is right for you. Find out more here.

11 Comments

I wasn’t surprised by the turquoise, teal or soft white mentioned, but very much by the other colors you named. It’ll be interesting to notice them being worn on others now and how they work. Really been enjoying your video series on colors.

Have you ever talked about changing hair color and how that changes what you can wear? When I have my colorist tweak the shade of my hair from time to time, it’s always fun to notice how things in my wardrobe work differently on me. Just this week, I noticed a brown top I was thinking of getting rid of suddenly worked on me when more brown was added to my hair color.

2. regarding bright or muted- I look at any photo of me and I’d say that I’m muted, but then bright colours suit me so much better I always thought (I may be wrong). is there a failsafe way to determine whether one is muted or bright?

Susie – Kate Middleton has a hazel green (olive) eye colour which means she’s more likely to be warm than cool. Plus when I look at her pics, she seems to suit warmer and softer colours rather than cooler or brighter colours.

Burgundy comes in both cool and warm versions. The cool burgundies are more raspberry, the warm ones more burnt.

Emilia Fox is warm and light and that black really doesn’t suit her. She is a high contrast light (because of the dark eyes) so looks great in the contrast of light and dark together – but would be much better in a dark brown than pure black.

When you think about Warm and cool – don’t think of them as complete opposites, think of them as a spectrum:

warm < <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>cool

This is why when you’re untrained it is often hard to figure out.

It could be the brightness of the gold on that dress that you didn’t like, rather than the gold itself.

Her wedding dress wasn’t a bright cool white, it was more a soft white (which anyone can wear, warm or cool).

With your last pic – the blue on the left is cool, the pink on the right is warm – and notice how the blue grabs your attention and takes it away from her face, whilst the pink blends with her so she is the feature not the colour.

Julie I did make a video on hair colour some time ago – and have noticed myself when I got some blonde streaks some years back that the colours that suited me changed as I lost some of my depth – so would wear lower contrast colours. Going lighter or darker will affect how you put together colours – the contrast levels – more than the colours themselves.

I have never had the pleasure, but an old friend was at the Royal Wedding, and has apparently known them for quite a number of years — he claims that she has blue eyes, not bright blue like her mother-in-law but blue nonetheless.

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